Aurora, Ontario and the York District in general offer a wide variety of educational environments in the elementary to secondary school range. There are of course the traditional secular public schools run by the York District School Board and funded by the government, the same type of which are found all over North America. You would think that with two boards there would be more schools than Kitchener Waterloo real estate listings but the York District School Board operates only two high schools in the town of Aurora, Dr. G.W. Williams Secondary and Aurora High.
There also exists in Aurora a second publicly funded school board system that offers Catholic schooling to York district residents, and not, in fact, Milton real estate. The Catholic School Board runs Cardinal Carter High in Aurora and several primary schools. This type of dual-school board system is not uncommon in this region of Ontario, which has strong Catholic roots. Catholic schooling is available in English through the York District Catholic School Board and in French from the Conseil Scholaire de District Catholique Cenre-Sud. The French board has one elementary school, Ecole St. Jean, and one secondary school, Ecole Renaissance, in Aurora.
Parents can choose to send their children to any of the three types of school free of charge, provided they're old enough to be out of diapers. Both York District and the English Catholic school boards maintain their headquarters in the town of Aurora. For boys in grades 6 to 12 there is also a third option: St. Andrew's College, a private university preparatory school with optional boarding capability.
As always, in Canada is also possible for parents to home school their children. Some parents choose to do so for religious reasons or because their children have special needs (it should be mentioned, however that Aurora public schools are fully able to accommodate children with special needs). Home schooled children, whether they're taught in a secluded complex in the middle of nowhere or a condo in Scarborough must still pass the same provincial standardized tests as public school children. |